Next Friday, May 17, 2013, we will publish our 500th issue of InfoAve Premium. It’s hard to believe that we’ve reached this milestone; it seems like yesterday when we published the first issue.
When that first issue was published, the Web was a different place, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Google (at least no one had heard of it), no iPads, no iPhones, no iPods, no Android OS, and Windows XP was just taking off. All of our tips were published for Windows 98, ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The Web was still a hodgepodge of mom and dad sites, and big corporate sites like Amazon, eBay and Yahoo. And things for free vastly outnumbered things for sale.
The Web is a different place now. There are still a few mom and pop sites around, but they are mostly blogs and such. There are more things for sale than for free. Our stationery site suffered when Windows 7 was released and we’ve had to completely re-structure our small business.
Next week, we’ll publish issue #500 and we’d like to make it a special one. We’d like you to tell us what you’d like to see in it. Would you like to see some old articles from the early days of InfoAve? Would you like us to feature some of your favorite tips and tricks and other articles? We hope you will help us make Issue #500 a very special issue. Please give us your suggestions and ideas; tell us what you’d like issue #500 to be. Help us make issue #500 a very special one!
Congratulations you guys. I’m a lifetime InfoAve subscriber. I think your idea for #500 issue is great. I’d love to send a suggestion, and look through those old issues to do it, but shortly I’m leaving home for a week so the timing won’t work. Off the top of my head, you’ve written some very powerful essays/opinions on privacy, security, internet freedom, ISP censorship, industry scumbags. and similar issues that were extremely important then, and still are. Some are even worse today than then. Maybe some of your “predictions” on certain trends you saw or were suspicious about, have been proven over time. You could highlight those in issue #500.
However, your article made me look in my computer to find the oldest issue I still have..#167 from December, 2006. I only wish I had saved earlier ones in tact. As I think I mentioned to you many years ago (and before my ISP appointed itself “the official incompetent manager and censor of MY email, and Microsoft (self appointed dictator of how we must do things on our computer and abandoned Outlook Express among other things), my absolute favorite thing to do with your newsletters was to copy and paste my personal favorite tips, etc, into a new email message, put the topic in the address line (starting with an (*) to keep them all together and separated from other stuff), put the date in the subject line, and saved it in the Draft Folder. That way Outlook Express was used as a “mini database” allowing me to manipulate and search. A bit cumbersome but it worked well when I wanted to look something up quickly. Outlook works pretty well for that purpose, too…at least an older version does. Unfortunately, to insure receipt of your Newsletters I had to have them sent to gmail. I’ve saved them there, but my “database system” has been disrupted.
Maybe a special section for comments and ideas from the peanut gallery .but no matter what you do it will be a great letter I am sure.
congratulations on #500. What an accomplishment. i am always passing on ideas to a friend of mine who is usually so busy she doesn’t have time to read your entire newsletter. we have both learned so much from you..again congratualtions on a job well done
Hi folks. I realise all the plaudits and advertising are necessary & I read them all. However in your special edition perhaps we could do away with the thankyou comments and some advertising just for this one issue to allow extra content.
The section on free programs for downloading is always interesting, one you may care to look at is PST Viewer Lite which allows a user to view PST files, ie emails hidden away in the bowels of the hard drive. Cheers & look forward to next issue.
There have been some ‘sweet’ rants over the years, like the one on high fructose corn syrup that changed the way I shop forever. I like the rants that talk about your small community and your quiet lifestyle. Maybe a history of how you two started together. Make it personal. We all think a great deal of you two and it should be your publication.
Tell us about the Underground Web or the Dark Web that has spread all over the world now. Will it soon be used against us?
Saving to the cloud, how it can be used: icloud,Evernote, even google
Hi Folks,
I would like to see you do something on the future of the home NAS/Entertainment Network. As well as how to build a feasibly Private Cloud at home in a healthy integrated way between Home Data and Entertainment Data. Please don’t forget Backups. 😀
I have a 1 GB and a 3 GB NAS, 1 GB C/D Disk and 2 GB E/F/G Disk in a tower(F&G alternate Boot/Test), 3 32 GB flash Drives in a Tablet and 2 32 GB in a Smartphone that I am trying to figure all this out on, including Backups. O.o 😛 I got the 3 GB with Backups primarily in mind. 🙂
If this is to short a notice for the Big 500 then perhaps in future issues.
Best Regards EB and TC,
Crysta
Would love to see all your most recent recommendations for free software to help our computers run better, cleaner, safer, and back up/restore. So much info comes out and i get a bit lost with what is best or was recommended but no longer is. thanks, love you guys.
Also some info on how to beat iTunes at its game of control. I often download music etc for my iPod and have so much trouble getting it onto my iPod via iTunes!!!
Hi folks, Congratulations to you. I’m a lifetime InfoAve subscriber from way back and I think your idea for #500 issue is great. You have had so many wonderful tips and information for us and you have saved me so many times and made my life so much easier. My suggestion would only be for some of your best tips to be resurrected as well as some of your advice on products to avoid etc, as both these things have been such a help.
Keep up the wonderful work you do for the multitude that you have helped including me.
Cheers, Betty (Australia)
My first brush with the infant industry of computing was (I think) in the late 1950’s or early 60’s when the pharmaceutical wholesaler for whom I worked, introduced a stock control system that utilised “mark sensing” of cards for the product range.
The annual stocktake produced some hilarious errors due to product description and especially packaging. The classic was condoms expressed in gross lots. At that time, no one could have conceived of reaching the point that we have now so my suggestion for inclusion in the 500th edition would be some potted version of the history of the intervening years. I realise that it is a vast topic but some highlights would no doubt surprise and inform the modern users.
I would enjoy some of your main ‘hints’ that don’t take too much to remember.Seniors memories are fading fast & the main things to remember are the real ‘tricks’ you have given us. I have printed a lot out & have a ring binder full that I have to refer to many times. Like this week when my PC kept freezing till I found “how to unfreeze windows XP.I finally got it right!Thanks to you.whatever you do for this issue will be great coming from you two. My question? “How do you keep up on all the new stuff that comes out daily?Boggles my mind!
I would appreciate and enjoy hearing a bit about both of you. How you got started. Where did you learn all this stuff about computers. Are you married to each other. etc. Congrats on your 500th issue.
Whatever you do will be great, looking forward to reading #500.
How bout the good the bad & the ugly from then til now?
As a long time user and great admirerer of Cloudeight, I am curious to know a bit more about the wonderful people who run it…viz EB and TC. Nothing too revealing of course like real names and addresses but…it would be up to you.
All I know is that EB is Darcy and female and TC is male
Please let us know you a little bit more
Anything YOU WRITE WILL BE great! I would also like to Know a little about Both of You’s. Nothing too Personal though, Ha! Ha!
Linda
I too, like the idea of a brief Bio on you both. Like Lacey, I’d love to see some do’s & don’ts for for my NAS & my many external drives as well as peripherals like graphic tablets. I would also love to see a section (for this or in the future) specific to the toys we all enjoy today….iPads, laptops, notebooks, ebook readers. I was 54 when I first started using a PC & am now 67. I would never have been able to learn html or blogging or even the graphic designing I do, if you guys had not helped me to get comfortable with my machine. I love you both!
You have receded behind the cloak of partial anonymity for many years. I would love to be able to associate a face & both your first names with your wonderful work. Hence, my request is for a nice picture of both of you with your first names below them. Although I feel that its really so inadequate, I know that I speak for all your fans when I say “THANKS” for the marvelous work that you do to make it so much better for all of us. You are both most greatly appreciated, of that I’m very confident.
As a lifetime subscriber, what ever you do will be wonderful, I have been with you for many years and do not know what I would do without you as your infoave has helped me sort things out on my computer many times, love you both,
How wonderful that you guys can celebrate together this amazing milestone of InfoAve Premium’s 500th issue of which I have been a recipient of for many years. My husband & I would just like to express to you our heartfelt congratulations and our wish for you both to continue on as the great team that we, your subscribers, know you are for at least another 500 issues. In agreement with commenter Lee, my suggestion if you’re both open to it would be to see a photo of the two of you. Again, love and best wishes for continued success and in all your future endeavors.
RK & GK
Hey how about a break for you , from the norm info . Share some of your bloppers, that would be a fun read.
I have been with you since the beginning, and a day does not go buy that i don’t have you on my screen , one way or another.
Congrats you guys are just SUPER
Darlene
I have been a lifetime member for many years and have learned to consider you as my friends, Please, include pictures and bio. I love to have a picture in my head of who I am corresponding with. Also would like the date of your first issue. Many ‘you live long and prosper’.
I too have been a lifetime subscriber since Hector was a pup. As several have said, it would really be lovely to know more about the forces behind CloudEight — how did you meet, what made you start this, just a little about you personally (maybe even a face shot).
Besides that content I’d love to know about your work day – what resources you use to keep on top of things technical and business oriented – if you have regular hours and/or conferences. I’ve always been interested in your behind the scenes since I really doubt EB is the ogre TC wants us to believe.
I’ve learned a lot over the years from you and hope to continue to do so.
My first thought was oh I would love to see a picture of you both. After reading some of the other comments it occured to me that each one of us probably have an image of each of you in our minds so would we be disappointed if you did’nt match-up? Perhaps it is better to keep the mystery still.
Of course I know that Darcy is beautiful, kind, patient and extremely clever while TC is tall & handsome and funny and sensitive ( re his Rants) and talks a lot!
Anyway I love and respect you both. Congratulations on your 500th letter and please keep keeping on. Sheila Smith Canada.
Congrats and Best Wishes for the next 500! I, too, love and respect you, and I am much more knowledgeable about my computer than I would ever be, thanks to you both. I look forward to Newsletter 500…I’m sure it will be very special! You are very special persons, as all your members know. You can be proud of your accomplishments that have helped so many of us. You make us feel like we are all family….and there is no-one else out there, to my knowledge, that fills your boots. God Bless and keep your both.
I am glad you have been there for us. I have worked with computers, since 1971 to 1993 when Digital went out of business. Big changes have happened since then. I have learned alot from your newsletters. I would like to see articles that you wrote before I became familar with your Cloudeight. I believe I started to received your newsletters around 2007. By the way in 2006 I bought a Compaq Presario with Windows XP, hopefully it will last a few more months. Thanks again for your support.
Hi TC & EB,
500 editions…WOWEE!…Congratulations and THANK YOU for 500 terrific pages of computer facts and figures, tips and tricks. rants and raves, freebies, un-ending assistance and most important, your friendship.
Now to the point,on your welcome page, in EVERY edition, I would like to see a couple of words telling us your current weather conditions.
When reading every newsletter, I try to imagine where you live, etc, and quite often I check your weather on the internet. Sitting here in my home suburb in Australia where the temperature rarely drops below 8 deg.C, I wonder at that moment if you are freezing your B’s off.
InfoAve, NOTH, Stationery, a great effort, TC & EB, you are appreciated ‘beyond compare.’
WOW! 500th issue! Hard to believe there have been that many. I have been with you from the beginning or real close. Love all you do to help us with our computers & on the web.
TC helped us with our computer last year & it is running wonderfully.
I would like to see more of the hints or links to where hints can be found. I save a lot of them to go back & check again.
Keep up the good work & hope to be around when you hit issue 1,000.
Congratulations on 500 Issues! Now that TC has installed WindowsMail for me, I would love to see more stationery. And I’m willing to pay for it! Not for Holidays, just ordinary, everyday stuff. Floral, kids, dogs, cats, scenery, etc. If I have to go into Windows8, I’m taking WindowsMail with me, I love it! I hope you two can keep this Newsletter going for a long time to come, you have helped me numerous times. I can’t imagine computering without you guys.
I too have been a premium subscriber since day 1 and cannot imagine how I would have learned about computers if I hadn’t discovered you. I await your newsletter every Friday and as usual it is packed full of great info and reading. It would be interesting to learn how you get this together and put out each week. Yes a picture and Bios of both of you would be of great interest so I can put a face to your wonderful comments. Keep up the great work. John G.
I would love a background story about how you two met and decided to take this journey and what your own personal backgrounds are.
as with many others—let us hear about both of you
picture too–than we will all know the two people who have been helping us over the years–and it would also be a great way to say thks in person–on the news letter
I`M A PREIUM MENBER HAVE BEEN SINCE THE BEGINING
so many useful–tips–tricks and opinions and freewear —gosh we should all say thanks a million to you both
500 and still going—who would of thought>>>>
wtg both of you —we all love ya!!!!